


do not stand at my grave and weep

by TheSleepingKnight



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: 2nd Person, Angst, Gen, Red Hood!Stephanie Brown, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23653387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSleepingKnight/pseuds/TheSleepingKnight
Summary: Stephanie Brown, from sixteen to twenty-two.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	do not stand at my grave and weep

You are sixteen running on seventeen when you’re murdered. The real tragedy of it all is that you’re not even entirely sure _what_ killed you.

Maybe it was the bullet that got lodged in your lung. (.45 caliber bullet, Bruce had made you memorize them.) Maybe it was the power drill to the knee (you had tried so hard not to scream but your body betrayed you and then so did your eyes). Maybe it was the hammer to the head (at least, at that point, you weren’t feeling much of anything.) Maybe it was the knives, the everpresent, piercing knives (you’d been stabbed before, but not like this. Never like this and oh god mom I’m _sorry.)_ Maybe it was the realization that no one was coming.

In the end, it didn’t really matter.

You died.

Except…

You didn’t.

You are still sixteen running on seventeen when the universe _twists,_ warps and ripples and rips and shatters and stitches itself back together again, and you’re a stray thread that’s been pulled back into the fabric. And you wake up inside your own grave screaming, desperately trying to get _out_ but you can hear the downpour of rain and you know no one is around to listen to you.

The worst thing about it is the first thought that runs through your head is:

_I’m going to die without anyone coming **again.**_

But then horror turns to hate, and hate becomes hard fists and bleeding knuckles, and you claw your way back to life one peice of splintered wood at a time.

* * *

The rest is...a blur. Your life is a half-dreamt recollection of random moments, blurred together like a film reel that’s all burnt up, melted together in a mess of memories and murder and missed messages. You drift from scene to scene, neurons misfiring and misplacing you in time and space. One minute you’re in the diner, and there’s a radio playing a song (get out of there robin _get out),_ and you go through the door once you get sick of the shouting (you’re _fired)_ and you find yourself in an alleyway you’re quite sure you’ve never been (tires stolen along with a set of pearls, both cases ended with a bang) and then you’re…

You are...

Who are you?

* * *

_Green._

Your world is green. Emerald light and jade whispers suffuse you. It flows _in,_ and you’re breathing a shade of aquamarine and erin, and then something _clicks._ Both of your lives snap back into order, and your brain finally catches up with your body.

And that’s when green gives way to _red,_ and you start screaming in earnest, because you _remember,_ and how the memories burn inside, like the kiss of a knife.

And then you just run.

* * *

You are still sixteen running on seventeen when you take your first life. He was the leader of a human trafficking ring, and when you see the state of the girls he’d kidnapped, you become something bigger than your body, and a sensation that feels like crimson floods your senses, and you methodically tear him to shreds. You make a song from broken bones and crushed cartilage, and it is beautiful.

He dies from the blood loss, and you just can’t bring yourself to _care._

All you really feel is _red._ Red like the rising sun, red like spilled blood, red like _i will never let this happen again._

An idea forms at the base of your skull, and that dark thing that’s been growing inside you like a tumor purrs, and says:

_Oh. I **like** that. _

And so you begin to plan.

* * *

The training is long and hard, sand in your lungs and gravel tearing up your feet. You go to anyone who will teach you, and find that your story buys a lot of goodwill.

As does the promise of hurting the Bat.

And so you dive into bitter work. You learn how to fight, and also how to _kill,_ and you find how it gets easier every time. You don’t just practice how to fight, no, you practice _everything._ Guns. Knives. Bombs.

Escaping. You learn how to break your thumbs and slip out of chains, how to pull bolts from the walls, because this time around, _no one_ is going to tie you up and shove a power drill through your knee.

No, this time around, _you’re_ going to do that.

You think you hear a purple-flavored ghost screaming. You remember a story that ends with a gunshot wound to the lung and a savoir that never comes, and she shuts up real fast.

Spoiler Alert: The girl dies.

* * *

You are nineteen going on twenty when you return home.

Gotham has a strange way of changing so entirely and yet staying exactly the same: it’s a paradoxical city, constantly on the edge of collapse but always solid in ways that people who don’t live in it can’t see. It will endure because it has trained it’s people to endure— it is a furnace. Survive the fire, find you’ve become steel. It will survive until the end of days, and it will be the last city on earth to fall, because Gotham is a city of nightmares, and it has chosen it’s defenders well. You enter, and find you blend more easily than ever into its shadows.

Gotham sighs and welcomes you back, because you have returned, its true daughter, and you’re going to spill blood in its name.

* * *

You’re twenty going on twenty-one when you see him again.

Tim Drake.

_Robin._

You only stop yourself from tackling him off the roof and painting those obscene yellows and greens bright red by the training and _the plan._

Even, so you just can’t stop yourself from thinking about plucking all of the feathers off of his wings.

* * *

It goes even better than you hoped. You wonder how anyone had ever feared Black Mask when he was so bafflingly _easy_ to manipulate, easy to outmaneuver and outgun, because all he had were faceless goons and a few psychos on call.

You bury bullets in the people he sends after you, and you lie to yourself when you say it makes you feel better.

The ghost in purple still creeps up on you, on hard nights, but you’ve learned how to silence her. You are not Stephanie Brown. You’ve become someone else.

You finally get Black Mask, and you take your time. It’s somewhere in between the thirty hammer to the chest and knife to the leg when you realize you’re not having fun.

You just feel hollow and empty. Like a candle with it’s wick burnt out. Maybe you’re not alive at all. Maybe you’re just a revenant who remembers someone else’s life, and you’re carrying out her last wish.

You think about it for a moment, and then pick up the power drill.

It doesn’t matter.

He deserves this.

* * *

You finally come face to face with _him_ and—

And—

And it’s still not enough.

All of your hate. Your training. All of the _red_ that burns inside you like a furnace had replaced your heart, and you still can’t keep him down. His shadows swallow every spark of crimson light you fling at him until you’re running on empty and there’s nothing left to give except a bullet.

He mutters words of regret. Of _apologies._

It’s more infuriating than insults and curses, and you make your opinion known with semtex and fire.

You manage to wake up before he does, and you crawl away to lick your wounds and not think about how it only took a death to make Bruce act human again.

* * *

You are twenty-one going on twenty-two when Batman dies.

And you don’t care.

You don’t care.

You don't—

You.

Who are you?

Gotham hisses an answer.

_You are Batman._

* * *

You are still twenty-one going on twenty-two when she finds you. Cass.

You fight, because that’s what Red Hood does, she fights the people she once loved, and once more it all amounts to nothing, because she’s never been good enough for Cassandra, in body or in mind.

So once your body doesn’t work, you use words because those are as effective as knives, and then Cass manages to surprise you.

She uses her own.

And they are well-chosen words, sinking into your skin and going straight for your heart.

And you…

You don’t know what to do anymore.  
  
You bleed until all of the red is gone. 

* * *

You are twenty-two going on twenty-three, and your name is Stephanie Brown, and you have finally found your home.

And for the first time since you died…

You are at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I am not there, I do not sleep.
> 
> Huge thank you's to Hinn_Raven for letting me use her AU!


End file.
